The present invention relates to a container for fluent material.
Containers for fluent material generally have an outer load bearing shell, commonly made of corrugated paperboard such as doublewall board and/or triplewall board. This material is of substantial strength, is economical and is widely used, the particular corrugated board and the number of layers being selected to provide the required strength. Within the outer corrugated board shell, there is a bag made of flexible material which is impervious to liquid or other fluent material which is to be contained and transported. These bags are typically of a suitable plastic, such as polyvinyl chloride. Containers of this type are typically used for the shipment of large quantities and weights of fluent material. For example, known containers of this type will hold three hundred gallons of liquid, the weight of which will be approximately 2,800 pounds. Such containers are placed on wooden pallets to enable then to be readily moved.
Heaps et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,917 provides a container of this type in which a filling spout at the upper end of the bag is supported by a plate extending horizontally near the upper end of the container, the plate resting on the coplanar upper edges of an inner and an intermediate layer forming part of the wall of the container.
An alternate construction is disclosed in the above mentioned application of Heaps, et al Ser. No. 149,920, in which a ring is provided to which the mouth portion of the bag is secured, the ring being substantially large in diameter, such as approximately fifteen inches, in order to permit rapid filling of the bag. The ring rests on the upper surface of the plate, which is supported near the top of the container, the bag mouth portion extending upwardly through the opening in the plate. Since the bag mouth portion is secured to the ring, the bag is held by the ring, supported on the plate, during filling. A closure is applied to the bag and ring after filling of the bag. This construction, while providing a container capable of rapid filling, did not permit stacking of one container on another. Further, the construction specifically disclosed for joining the bag to the bag supporting ring required the utilization of special equipment not available at plants which produce corrugated paperboard and containers from them. Nor is such equipment available to the users of such containers with bags, these being the producers of fluent material such as liquids, tomato paste, powders etc.
Containers of various types are produced by container manufacturing plants, and are conventionally shipped in knock-down and disassembled condition to a customer. The customer then erects the container, and assembles the various parts of it, including the liquid impervious bag. To provide a container as disclosed in said Heaps et al application, there was produced a sub-assembly comprising the bag, bag support and top and bottom plates. To make this sub-assembly, the bag was required to be passed through the opening in the plate, until substantially the entire body of the bag, except for the mouth portion, was on one side of the plate, the bag holding a ring and the mouth portion of the bag which was inseparably secured to it being on the other side of the plate. A bottom plate was then attached to the bottom of the bag. This operation has been found to be more time consuming and somewhat more difficult than is desirable, due to the effort to pass the large bag through the opening.
The above construction was also found to be more expensive than desirable, because of the requirement that the bag be joined to the bag holder, which was in the form of a ring, by specialized forming equipment not conventionally found in corrugated paperboard plants. The construction was therefore expensive due to the necessity for shipping bags to a plant having the specialized equipment and the necessity for the special operations required for joining the bag to the bag holder.
While containers as above described have proven to be highly advantageous in that they could be rapidly filled, and were sufficiently strong to hold the large weights in them, approaching 3000 pounds of liquid, it was found that they were not sufficiently strong to be stacked, despite the fact that the initial testing of components of the container indicated that all parts were sufficiently strong to enable stacking.